An apparatus having the above construction as proposed in, for example, EP-A-256 250, wherein vertically standing shells in a bottom magazine or removed from the magazine by a gripper and directly delivered to an indexing position of the barrel. For this purpose, the gripper is pivotable on the loading arm about a further axis substantially perpendicular to the pivot axis. Thus, when the loading arm is pivoted outwardly, the gripper can be pivoted outwardly and receiving a shell in a reception position on the magazine. After pivoting the gripper into its starting position, the loading arm is pivoted upwardly until a shell, resting on a loading tray, is aligned with the bore axis of the barrel. The shell is transported from this starting position, by the rammer, into the barrel.
In the starting position, the shell is at a considerable distance from its final position in the barrel. In the above proposed construction, this distance must be bridged by the rammer. With two-part ammunition, in which the shell and the propellant charge are introduced separately into the barrel, the shell must be rammed into the barrel rifling. For this purpose it is provided, on its outside and near to the bottom, with a ring made from soft deformable material, which is sealingly rammed into the barrel rifling end, for this purpose, considerable accelerative forces must be applied. As the loading tray can only bring the shell to the bottom of the barrel, so that in free flight the shell must be transported by the bottom piece and the propellant charge chamber, it is hardly possible to bring about a completely satisfactory ramming from the starting position. Ramming is even more difficult in that the propellant charge chamber is rearwardly constricted by a bottom ring, which projects in a vicinity of a lower tip of the chamber into the free cross-section thereof and has the function of supporting the introduced propellant charge with an elevated barrel. This bottom ring forms a "trip edge" for the shell and, in particular, for the ring thereon which is used for ramming. Consequently, a tilting of the shell occurs.